Let True Morality Stand Up!

April 20, 2018 Morality No Comments

Basically, two ‘moralities’ can be distinguished: cognitive (thinking) and emotional. However, this is a purely conceptual, abstract distinction. Reality consistently shows them intermingled.

The relevance

is enormous. ‘Morality’ is the basis of culture. Almost all important decisions carry within them a factor of morality, or better: moralities.

‘Stress/distress’ is in all cases related to an emotionally-moral dilemma: Should I do this or that? Should I care for keeping my job? Should I try to do things as well as possible in non-optimal circumstances?…

Without moral dilemmas, there is no psychosomatics, no depression nor anxiety… But there would also be no happiness, no joy, no heroism, no gratefulness…

A soldier in context of war

Two enemy sides, a revealing situation through the extremes:

  • If a soldier intentionally kills a bunch of fellows, he is considered a murderer, court-marshalled, executed.
  • If a soldier intentionally kills a bunch of enemies, he is considered a hero and gets a medallion.
  • With the same victims but the soldier being from the other camp, he is treated in the opposite way.

What result – which bunch getting killed – is right or wrong? A Martian wouldn’t make the difference. Purely cognitively, the Martian may be correct. Emotionally, we don’t generally see it this way.

=> two ‘moralities’?

Brainy stuff

In the brain, we see specific parts being activated when a person is in a cognitively moral situation (*) versus an emotionally moral one (**). Say:

A: You get to kill either 1 or 5 unknown persons, by pushing button ‘1’ or ‘5’.

B: You get the choice to smother your own child or let others kill 5 persons.

DON’T mentally do this exercise please. The point is that the first situation is – again – a mostly cognitive dilemma; the second a mostly emotional one.

Looking inside your brain, very different things would be going on. Your decision would probably be the opposite in A versus B. Yet it would in both cases be the most human one, therefore the morally correct. More specifically, the brainy stuff also doesn’t show us which one is ‘right’: cognitive or emotional morality.

Conclusion: there is no ‘True Morality’

There is a human one.

We are no robots.

Let’s keep it this way.

So, what is ‘human moral progress’?

I think the answer – at least the direction – is twofold and clear:

  • At the individual level, being-moral is being-human, as completely as possible, entailing cognition and emotion. Then, diving into the pool of human-ness. Moral progress at this level results from doing your best to be-human, completely, thus also within the boundaries of our evolution as a species even as we try to transgress these boundaries. A point of departure may be a synthesis of the five ‘aurelian’ values: depth, openness, respect, freedom, trustworthiness.
  • (Here one can see another level: the ‘cultural’. In my view, this is in practice something like the individual, in theory something like the universal.)
  • At the universal level, ‘morality-as-concept’ lies in clear-cut, abstract thinking about this. Such thinking is also about emotion, without emotion. Key question: what is ‘the good’ and how can it be attained for as many as possible? This is: how can one let humans ‘be-human, as completely as possible’ – this is: be-moral – as well as possible? At this level, moral progress lies in the quality of the abstract thinking.

I didn’t say it would be easy.

 

(*) frontopolar cortex, medial frontal gyrus, right anterior temporal cortex, lenticular nucleus…

(**) right medial orbitofrontal cortex, medial frontal gyrus, cortex surrounding the right posterior superior temporal sulcus…

 

Leave a Reply

Related Posts

What Is Morality to A.I.?

Agreed: it’s not even evident what ‘morality’ means to us. Soon comes A.I. Will it be ‘morally good’? Humans have a natural propensity towards morality. Whether we tend towards ‘good’ or ‘bad’, we have feelings and generally recognize these in others too, in humans and in animals. We share organic roots. We recognize suffering and Read the full article…

Morality in Healing

The morality of healing lies in becoming a whole – healed – person. An in-dividual = un-divided. Ethics is involved in healing. Not only in why and how, but in the actual healing itself. This would not be the case if healing were always as simple as attaining a prior state of health. But since Read the full article…

Jailhouse Lisa

Any in-jail Lisa coaching starts from the insight that morally bad behavior doesn’t originate in a Realm of Evil. There is always an understandable human setting behind any human action. Lisa in jail All convicts must have access to Lisa. At least, that is my view. Moreover, as a matter of fact, this access must Read the full article…

Translate »